When a queen paper wasp dies, her colony descends into chaos—but it does not fall apart. Instead, a remarkable group of workers step quietly into the breach, forgoing their own power struggles to keep the essential machinery of survival running.
This discovery emerges from research led by UCL scientists who studied tropical paper wasps (Polistes canadensis) in Panama, examining what happens when established colonies lose their dominant female. The findings, published in Animal Behaviour, reveal a previously overlooked mechanism that allows animal societies to weather even the most turbulent leadership transitions. In these colonies, reproduction is controlled by a single queen, but the female workers are not sterile—they could theoretically become the next breeder if circumstances allowed. When researchers experimentally removed queens from established colonies, they uncovered what unfolds in nature's most visceral power struggle.
What followed was immediate and intense. Aggressive interactions between females escalated dramatically as multiple wasps competed for reproductive dominance. The colony's usual social networks collapsed. Rather than a smooth transfer of power, succession involved violent conflict involving many group members. Yet despite this turmoil, the colonies survived. The secret lay not in the fighters, but in those who refused to fight.
The researchers identified a distinct group they term "compensators"—wasps that deliberately avoided engaging in aggressive conflict and power struggles. Instead of battling for dominance, these individuals quietly increased their investment in essential tasks like foraging and brood care. By ensuring that food continued to reach developing offspring, they maintained societal function through periods of intense social chaos. Their work quite literally kept the colony alive while others fought for control.
What makes this finding particularly striking is that compensators did not appear biologically different from those engaging in the power struggle. This suggests their behavior reflects strategic choices rather than fixed biological roles. Some wasps apparently decided that pursuing dominance offered their best chance at future reproduction. Others made a different calculation: ensuring the survival of the brood—typically composed of their own siblings—was worth more than chasing power during a dangerous vacuum.
Lead author Dr. Owen Corbett, who conducted this research as part of his Ph.D. at UCL's Center for Biodiversity & Environment Research, captured the dynamic plainly: "While some individuals fought over dominance, others completely avoided the conflict and quietly stepped up to keep the colony running. Cooperation didn't disappear; it was redistributed."
This study examined behavioral data collected during fieldwork in Panama in the early 2000s, offering a rare window into a poorly studied form of succession. Most previous research on cooperative colonies has focused on temperate species from Europe or North America with highly ordered dominance hierarchies and predictable succession rules. This system—chaotic, aggression-driven, and far less orderly—has received far less attention. The findings challenge a long-held assumption: that aggressive succession is too costly to persist. Instead, they show such systems remain viable precisely because compensators offset the costs of conflict.
Senior author Professor Seirian Sumner noted the broader implications of the work: "In times of turmoil, society depends on those who keep doing the essential work in the background. In many ways, we may be more like wasps than we realize."